REVIEW: Jhootha Hi SahiFRIENDS AND OTHER CREATURES
Abbas Tyrewala’s debut Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, had endearingly real characters, people like us, with lives pretty much like ours -- and to make it filmi, a good over-the-top climax. His second film, Jhootha Hi Sahi, following the same ‘Hero and Friends’ formula, set in London is a bit of a let down. It’s contrived, derivative and very deficient in the joie de vivre that should be the mark of a successful romcom.
REVIEW: Rakta Charitra-1GORE AND MORE
A director with the cinematic skills of Ram Gopal Varma ought to be able to reinvent himself, but all he does is reinvent the wheel.
After every string of failures he keeps going back to violent sagas of gangsters, but, while his first Shiva and successful Satya, had a sense of control, social comment and artistic merit, his subsequent returns to gangland have been needlessly violent and meaningless.
REVIEW: Letters to Juliet (2)PURE MUSH
Sometimes an American film outdoes Bollywood. Gary Winick’s film Letters to Juliet, could very well have been a Hindi film from the Chopra/Johar camp--it even has a Veer Zaara moment-- but this one is much more likeable than most of their recent romantic offerings, in spite of its 100 percent predictability.
REVIEW: Letters to JulietCHEESY, NOT BREEZY
If you like play-by-numbers rom coms set in impossibly beautiful places, you might take to Gary Winick's Letters To Juliet. Or then if you worship Vanessa Redgrave, the grand old dame of British cinema. If you're a fan of Gael Garcia Bernal though (like your's truly) and expect the filmmaker to give the gorgeous Mexican actor a meaty role (and the girl, in the end, of course), you're in for gross disappointment.
REVIEW: Knock Out (2)DIAL M FOR MAYHEM
All of Mani Shankar’s earlier films reveal his penchant for gizmos, and Joel Schumacher’s Phone Booth (2002) offered him a readymade plot. It’s just that, plagiarism has become a bit tougher, thanks to Hollywood’s vigilance.
REVIEW: Aakrosh (2)BURNING PLAIN
Aakrosh may not be a typical Priyadarshan film, since the director is now associated with comedy—but it looks like so many of his films. Set in a North Indian town, but obviously shot in the South, this brazen lift of the powerful Mississippi Burning, easily substitutes Dalit-Thakur clashes for Black vs White in 1960s America; the Ku Klux Klan is turned into Shool Sena, and voila, the story is Indianised.
REVIEW: The SwitchPARENT TRAP
What's with Hollywood sex symbols (Jennifer Aniston was recently voted most eligible in some random online poll) and their desperate desire for mommydom. Recently, Jennifer Lopez opted for IVF in The Back Up Plan and now Aniston follows in The Switch. Hollywood actually expects us to believe these women can't find suitable men? Tsk!
REVIEW: AakroshSPOT THE DIFFERENCE
One of the most interesting characters in Alan Parker's 1988 film Mississippi Burning, about the murder of three black civil rights activists in a violent and rabidly racist Southern American town, is that of Mrs. Pell (Frances McDormand), a passive, but sensitive woman sympathetic to the blacks, but rendered mute by her abusive husband who's a local cop and the man responsible for the murders. Gene Hackman (that wily, gifted actor) is Anderson, one of two FBI agents dispatched to investigate the crime and from the moment he sets eyes on Mrs. Pell, he knows she's the key to solving the case. So he starts cajoling her and wooing her with sweet words and gestures. He thinks he's using her, but we know he is, in fact, falling for the woman. Their delicately nuanced quasi-romance forms a fantastic sub-plot in this political thriller.
REVIEW: Knock OutKILLER COPY
I remember watching Joel Shumacher's Phone Booth at a Hong Kong multiplex in 2002. It's 81 minutes long and for almost its entire duration, Colin Farrell's scumbag PR agent, Stu, is locked inside Manhattan's last surviving phone booth with a sharp-shooter's gun ominously pointed to his head. The sniper has called him on the public phone that Stu regularly uses to dial his girlfriend (he's cheating on his wife, hence) and refuses to hang up till he confesses to all his misdeeds and owns up to his general sliminess. We never get to see the shooter, but his voice (Kiefer Sutherland) holds our attention, as it does Stu's and before you know it, the neat little thriller ends without a dull moment, nor much fuss. It's a morality play about a self-styled avenger out to put his victims through an inquisition that'll make them repent their chosen path in life. That's all.
REVIEW: Crook (2)MENTAL TORTURE
Mohit Suri's Crook is shocking, both in its take on racism and its rabidly boorish sexism. Both Suri and lead actor Emraan Hashmi have done better work in the past and the Bhatt camp has made relatively ok films on topical issues. This one then, is singular in its senselessness. Like nobody knew where the film was going and nobody cared anyway.
Hashmi plays Jai, a petty Mumbai crook who keeps saying "it's good to be bad". In typical filmi style, he carries a chip on his shoulder about having witnessed his father's brutal murder by the police commissioner when he was a boy. His uncle (Gulshan Grover) is willing to do anything to get Jai back on track and hence gives him a new identity as Suraj and packs him off to Australia. There he meets pretty Suhani (Neha Sharma -- where do the Bhatt's source their heroines from?) and there's instant attraction etc etc.
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